


The Snow All Melts Anyway

by Evanisnot_theEvanyouknow



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Anxiety, Connor Murphy Lives (Dear Evan Hansen), Depression, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I know I know just let me have this, I'm sad after reading the novel okay?, It started snowing today so really I'm just venting and making it shippy, M/M, Not like consciously, kind of, let me have this idealistic world where they're all friends and no one's dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 12:32:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16429472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evanisnot_theEvanyouknow/pseuds/Evanisnot_theEvanyouknow
Summary: Evan can't seem to find happiness in the oncoming season but hanging out with Connor seems to ease his mood, and that's okay.Or, I'm depressed and can only express my feelings through fictional characters, so I make it shippy.





	The Snow All Melts Anyway

The first time it snows, every year it's depressing. You sit there by your window thinking "Oh yeah! Snow!" It's getting heavier by the minute, it looks so light but it's also pleasantly chilly and the flakes are getting bigger and bigger, coming faster and faster!

Then you look down and see it all melt on the pavement, or the grass, or the concrete, or the road, or the driveway, or the rooftops, disappearing before your eyes. And now you're sad. Because it doesn't settle. It won't settle. It's disappointing. And you feel a heavy weight on your chest, your excitement vanishes within the blink of an eye. It's still snowing but it's not fun anymore, you begin to wonder if it ever was in the first place, or if you were just deluding yourself into feeling happiness and now you've made it one of Those Days so the whole day is basically ruined by this weight that won't go away and ultimately it's your fault for being so broken you can't even enjoy the first time it snows in the year like anybody else would.

Maybe that last part's just me.

I hear a buzz on my phone and my first instinct is to, as I've been doing for the past few minutes, ignore it, but then what if it was important? Or what if it wasn't important but whoever texted me would end up hating me for not replying immediately after the first text? So many possibilities race through my head it's hard to keep track. I decide the best option I have is to finally answer it.

I have a text from my mom, "look at the snow, Evan!! Home late tonight x", an excited text from Zoe, "it's snowing!!", and a slightly more aggressive text from Jared, "it's Christmas motherfucker" (to which I reply "I'm Jewish? You're Jewish??" and he replies "it was joke" and "chill" and then "look at the snow." with a full stop at the end). I can't bring myself to match their excitement, but for the sake of not being That Guy I send a "yay!!" to Zoe, after much deliberation, and a "yeah I know!" to Jared, who doesn't care.

I pause for a moment and glance back out the window, watching a single snowflake fall from the sky and instantly disappear on the pavement like it was never there. I look up at the sky and it almost looks like static. That sounds like me, falling from static and then instantly vanishing, starting out as a nothing background noise and ending with no proof of my ever being there. Except I'm not as pretty as the snow, I'm more of a green/grey sludge. Except the sludge I imagine would probably get in people's way instead of dissapearing once it hits the ground. People would step around it and stare at it with disgust until someone tried to wipe it up, and then it would just smear and stain and be a pain to everyone. I start to think about summer and imagine myself as the sludge under that tree, and then I decide that it's time to think about something else.

I think about texting Connor. I hold my phone in my hands and hover over his contact, not actually pressing it because what if I do and then my hand slips and I send some weird embarrassing message like "fogkf" or "habusnl"? Eventually my hands get so sweaty that even if I now wanted to hit his contact I couldn't because it's just smear the screen and my phone is slipping out of my hand. And why are my hands sweaty in the first place? I'm not even talking to him yet!

I wipe my gross, sweaty palms on my shirt and try again.

"Hey"  
No  
"Hi!"  
Too much  
"Hello"  
That just sounds creepy  
"So snow, huh?"

I don't know why I settle on that, but it about sums up our everyday conversations. One of us will say "so life, huh?" and the other will laugh sarcastically and say something like "you know it" and then we'll change the subject to something more relevant to the day. Except I didn't send "life" or "depression" or "anxiety" or something else we can pretend to joke about. I sent snow.

He texts me back, "yeah it's cool"

I completely miss the pun and tell him that it won't settle, despite my head screaming at me all the while. He responds with "mood", which I don't understand. I drop my phone on my bed and Connor doesn't say any more, so I assume he doesn't want to talk. I grab a blanket and stare out the window and think about myself as snow, and then sludge, and then nothing. I fixate on a patch of ground, watching flake after flake fall and dissolve.

I must have been sat there a while, because Connor texts me that he's outside and sure enough I see a slightly damp, tall figure strolling up the path towards my house. It's clear he walked here, because he's wet, shivering, and not in a car. It's an obvious detail, really. He looks up from his phone to stare into my window. I wave awkwardly and move downstairs to let him in.

I can see that he's shaking, his cheeks and nose are red from the cold and his hands are freezing when I touch them. Somehow, he's only wearing a hoodie and it's evident he didn't even put the hood up given how wet his hair is.

"Oh my God, come in!" I utter, pulling him inside. He kicks his shoes off roughly, as he always does, and follows me into my living room.

"Touch my ears," he says. I can't tell if he's joking, his face seems serious.

"What?"

"Touch my ears," he repeats, so I do.

"They're freezing," I note, because really what else can I say about them? Connor laughs as if that was the point, so I suppose it was. "Do you want a different jacket? Or a towel for your hair? You're freezing, why did you walk here?!"

Connor's smile disappears and is replaced by a frown, my heart begins to race. I've said something wrong, I've disappointed him, i'm-

"I came to see you." A wave of guilt washes over me. Connor's cold and wet and shivering because of me. I didn't think what I'd said had any indication that I wanted him to come over, let alone that I wanted him to walk over. I know I must have said something wrong again and now Conner's shaking in my living room because of me.

"I'm sorry," I blurt out. "I didn't mean for- and now you're- I didn't want you to- I mean I never asked-"

Connor waves a hand at me dismissively, "no I was already out, I wanted to come. Don't apologize."

"Sorry," I say without thinking. He sighs, but not in a mean way or a fed-up-with-you way like Jared, or in a why-can't-you-just-stop-being-like-this way like Zoe and my mother sometimes do. It's more affectionate, which at least eases my anxiety on that one particular thing. I go and grab a hoodie from my room despite Connor not asking for one. It's bigger on him but short at the sleeves, so his pale, skinny wrists stick out and I note that it almost looks like nothing but bone. Connor holds his own hoodie awkwardly until I offer to put it on the radiator, to which he hands it to me with a short "thanks" and fidgets with the hoodie strings. I'm suddenly embarrassed by my hoodie, where his is just plain grey, mine is green with a dumb logo on it. It looks out of place on him, the only colour I've seen on him is brown. I scold myself for not grabbing the maroon one instead, at least it would look slightly less obnoxious.

I sit down next to him close enough that I can feel the side of his leg on the side of mine. We always sit like this but I still feel like I'm invading his personal space without asking, like he secretly hates me for doing it or that we were never supposed to sit this close in the first place and each time before has been an accident so now I'm the weird one for sitting this close to him.

I only realise I'm biting my nails when he takes my hand with his freezing cold one and holds it, interlocking his fingers with mine. I'm acutely aware of my sweating palms and the combination of his cold hands causing this gross, clammy feel, but Connor doesn't seem to care. I remember have no idea why he's here, so I ask.

"I wanted to get out of the house anyway," Connor says. "Mom was going on about her bullshit yoga retreats or whatever again and how she's not going to cook with gluten anymore because apparently it "affects your mood". I got mad. I couldn't be bothered, so I left." I know there's more to it than that he just "couldn't be bothered" but with the tired strain of his voice and the way he slumps his shoulders as he sits with me, I get it, so I don't press.

"Besides," he adds, surprising me, "I wanted to see you." I suppose it was a long way to walk just because he wanted to leave his own house, it lifts some of the weight off my chest, barely. I hear him mumble "sorry" and have to remind him that it's okay, because I want him here and I don't want him to leave, because that little bit of weight just lifted and I realise now that I need him here so I stop thinking about the snow and the sludge and trees in the summer.

That's selfish, I tell myself, but Connor (somewhat playfully, somewhat exhaustedly) rests his head on my shoulder, and his wet hair tickles my face and dampens my cheek when I lean back, and I notice he's still got ahold of my hand. If I can forget about my clammy hands for a moment, which I am now acutely aware of again, I can forget that I'm selfish, maybe, and let Connor lift that weight off my chest for a moment more.

**Author's Note:**

> Oof, probably very out of character I think but screw me.
> 
> Thanks for reading if you got this far! Comments and Kudos are appreciated. I'm not used to writing romantic stuff so let me know where I can improve!


End file.
